Pallbearer: Between Little Rock And A Hard Place

For a band who plays slowly, things have moved rather quickly for Little Rock’s PALLBEARER. The Arkansas group saw extraordinary success with their debut album Sorrow And Extinction, and reaped yet more recognition with Foundations Of Burden and Heartless. While they are rooted in a doom metal sound, PALLBEARER have gradually incorporated progressive colours into their sombre sound; delivering earthy tones, melodic hooks and restful reprieves with heartfelt sincerity.

Following the chart success of Heartless, PALLBEARER released a trio of singles – Dropout, Atlantis and a redux of Ashes – as well as recording their own version of PINK FLOYD’s Run Like Hell. As this year approaches its heart-rending final chapter, PALLBEARER will release their fourth studio album, Forgotten Days, on Nuclear Blast Records. Distorted Sound sat down with vocalist and guitarist Brett Campbell to talk artwork, inspiration and beer as he remembers the making of Forgotten Days.

“We didn’t go into the album with any themes in mind, but they emerged,” Brett tells us. “Despite Joe [Rowland] and I writing songs separately, and not discussing what we were writing about, the same concerns arose through our songs. It’s bizarre.” This telepathic creativity has produced an album which explores the enduring anxieties of both time and family. These themes are rendered in striking style on the album’s cover, painted by drummer Mark Lierly’s brother Michael. “It’s supposed to be a surreal family photo,” Brett explains. “If you look closely, the cover is hanging on the wall on the back cover, kind of an Easter egg. It tied in with some of the themes of the album.” The dreamlike portrait features three generations, two fading parents placed either side of a mother with a child in her arms; an allegory for the album’s themes. “There’s this concept of trying to move forward into the future and live in it, but there are so many things that could go wrong, and no one knows what the future holds.” explains Brett. “Time is an unstoppable force that brings change and endings, but also new beginnings. Those beginnings are not always positive, but will always be the ultimate vector of metamorphosis.”

“When I write it’s more of a blast of, I don’t know, channelling inspiration?” Brett reflects. “It doesn’t really matter what guitar I’m playing, so long as I can find a guitar. I just need a vessel to channel whatever happens. Of course, when it comes to actually playing it, it’s nice to have stuff that sounds good!” Every musician is an advocate for their gear, and the PALLBEARER front man is no exception. “There is a guitar that I have that this dude has loaned to me indefinitely. It’s a Seger guitar, a nine-string: so the three low strings are normal, and then the upper strings are doubled up, so it’s kind of half of a twelve string? I just tune them to be the same note, so it’s like a chorus effect on the high strings. It’s an inspiration for some of the stuff, purely because it’s a unique instrument to play.”

When it comes to other artists, PALLBEARER are as eclectic in their inspiration as you might imagine. “Rite Of Passage – that was one of Joe’s – he used SOLSTICE as a kind of reference there. TALK TALK too. The final album Laughing Stock is probably my favourite, but they’re all really interesting. On Stasis it’s kind of like a DINOSAUR JR. sort of vibe? Whenever I’d show that song to our drummer Mark, he’d say NEIL YOUNG!”

For the recording of Forgotten Days, PALLBEARER sought after legendary producer Randall Dunn. “We did the whole thing in a little over two weeks, and a lot of that is due to Randall’s approach to things,” Brett remembers admiringly. “With [Randall], he records in the same way we had been trying to do, and in some cases achieved previously, so instead of having to explain what we want, we’re already on the same level. So to get the tone right, it’s a short conversation, and he just gets it. He has an incredible ear for tone.” Forgotten Days returns to the earthy tones of their celebrated debut Sorrow And Extinction, albeit in a refined fashion. “The first one is raw because of the circumstances under which it was recorded,” Brett explains. “We used a converted garage studio. It wasn’t extremely sophisticated and we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. It inherently sounded raw.” By contrast, Forgotten Days’ sound is much more deliberate: “With this, our goal was to capture a live feeling and make a record that sounds like we sound live. We wanted to put that on a record as much as possible. That rawness is what I’d consider to be the sonic connection to our first album.”

No recording session would be complete without a well-earned beer at the end of the day, and PALLBEARER are no strangers to the raising of the wrist. “There’s a local brewery here in Little Rock. The head brewer at the time was a PALLBEARER fan. They contacted us and asked if we’d be interested in doing a limited edition beer, and of course – all of us being alcoholics in varying degrees – we said: absolutely, yes.” The result? ‘The Legend’, a Czech-style Pilsner. “We all like that style. I designed the can label, so it was truly collaborative, and we got to taste it straight out of the fermenter. It was really good, I wish they’d make more of it!”

Conversation moves to the future, and the band’s plans in the face of the pandemic. “We were trying to keep it quiet, but we have a ton of other material that we were working on up to the point that the pandemic started,” divulges Brett. “I guess we could produce another album before we play any of the Forgotten Days material live? The question is: how do we go about doing that at this point? It’s a logistical nightmare,” he sighs. “I feel like we were getting to a really good creative point as a band, and I don’t want to stall for maybe two years. The music’s got to be made, and that’s what we do: so, we’ve got to find a way to make it happen.”

Forgotten Days is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.

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